Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) submitted a court filing revealing that the parents of 545 kids separated at the border under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy are yet to be found for reunification with their children. The children have been living with sponsors throughout the country, and it is believed many of the parents have already been deported back to their home countries.
The family separations began in 2017 and 2018, when the Trump administration enacted its highly controversial zero-tolerance policy as part of its overall crackdown on immigration. The policy ultimately led to close to 5,500 families being separated, according to Lee Gelernt of the ACLU. The children were placed in shelters, unaware of what happened to their parents or when they would see them again.
While the children were placed with sponsors—foster families or distant family relatives in the country—the government was ordered by a federal judge to track the whereabouts of their parents. According to a government watchdog office, the government was unable to adequately do so because they failed to track the families upon separation.
A steering committee, which included the ACLU and other pro-bono organizations, was then appointed by the courts to locate the families 1,030 children who were separated from their parents during the 2017 pilot program of the family separation policy. It is estimated that many of these families were deported even before a federal judge ordered that they be found, and that two-thirds of these families are currently in their respective countries of origin while their children remain in the United States. 545 parents have been unable to be contacted.
The Department of Homeland Security claims that the administration has attempted to reunite the families but that the parents of many of the children have chosen for them to stay in the United States rather than be returned to them in their countries of origin. Responding to these statements, Gelernt said that “we have not even found these 545 parents so neither we nor certainly the administration can know whether they want to be reunited.” He added that the humane solution would be for the parents to be allowed to reunite with their children and families in the United States, something the current administration is unwilling to allow.
Democratic nominee Joe Biden called the reports “an outrage, a moral failing, and a stain on our national character.” He added that the principle that families belong together will be at the core of his immigration policy, should he be elected the next president of the United States. Additionally, he has pledged to reform the country’s immigration system to create a path to citizenship for the millions of undocumented immigrants already living in the United States, including extending protections to Dreamers and their families and fast-tracking legal status to those immigrants who have been essential to the country during the coronavirus pandemic.